Artists
Scott Alan Youngs, conductor
His multi-faceted music career is based on the premise that great performances are made possible through great education. Every performance should be an opportunity to grow, to touch human emotions, and to elevate the human experience.
Through his work at All Saints' Episcopal Church and Day School, he works with every level of expertise, always with the same goal in mind: educate, inspire, train, fulfull.
As conductor of the seven-year "American Bach" series, Youngs worked with players drawn from the Phoenix Symphony and the best professional singers in Phoenix.
As a pianist and organist, he has appeared in recital throughout Western Europe, the United States, and South America. As a choral conductor, he has toured with his choirs in England, Wales, Ireland, and Russia.
An Arizona native, he began his musical life with the Tucson Boys Chorus. Youngs received his Bachelors Degree from the University of North Texas, his Masters Degree from the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, and he continued his studies in France with Jean Langlais and Theodore Paraschivescu, and in Switzerland with Guy Bovet.
Stephen Redfield, violin
Violinist Stephen Redfield is a member of the University of Southern Mississippi School of Music faculty, where he performs with the Mississippi Chamber Circle and the Baroque duo HauptMusik. Throughout the year Stephen acts as concertmaster of the Santa Fe Pro Musica, and each summer plays with the Victoria Bach Festival, where his performances as concertmaster and soloist have been produced on discs and broadcast nationally. He also leads the second violin section in the Sunriver Festival, and is a member of the Oregon Bach Festival orchestra, where he has participated in numerous recordings, including the Grammy Award-winning disc "Credo."
Stephen is frequently featured as a soloist with orchestra, sometimes also acting as the ensemble's leader. During 2009, Mendelssohn's 200th birth-year, he will perform both Mendelssohn violin concertos, as well as his three sonatas. As a chamber musician, Stephen has performed internationally, collaborating with artists Andre-Michel Schub, Peter Wiley and Mark Peskanov.
Stephen's dissertation is on the late 18th-century Keyboard and Violin Sonatas of Vicenzo Orgitano, and since researching in this area, he developed a specialization in period performance. He performs regularly as a Baroque violinist, including as a member of the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and he has led the ensembles Albuquerque Baroque Players and Nashville's Music City Baroque. Stephen's Baroque chamber music credits include concerts with Marion Verbruggen, Mary Springfels, Elizabeth Blumenstock and Kenneth Slowik.
As a member of the Sebastian Ensemble with harpsichordist Kathleen McIntosh, Stephen travelled to Lima, Peru for last May's Festival Internacional de Música Antigua. Specializing in J.S. Bach's Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord Obligato, this period performance group has toured throughout the United States as well as in Spain, Japan and Cuba.
Stephen's major teachers were Dorothy DeLay at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Donald Weilerstein at the Eastman School, and Leonard Posner at the University of Texas. He studied Baroque violin with Lucy van Dael in Amsterdam and with Elizabeth Blumenstock.
Kimberly Marshall, organ
Kimberly Marshall maintains an active career as a concert organist, performing in Europe, the US and Asia. Winner of the St. Albans Competition in 1985, she has been invited to play in prestigious venues and has recorded for Radio-France, the BBC, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she began her organ studies with John Mueller at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Her early interest in French music took her to France where she worked with Louis Robilliard and Xavier Darasse before returning to the US to complete her undergraduate studies with Fenner Douglass.
In 1986, Kimberly Marshall received the D.Phil. in Music from the University of Oxford with a thesis on the late-medieval organ. She has lectured on her research for the American Musicological Society and the Royal College of Organists, and has contributed entries for the Grove Dictionary of Music 2000 and for the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. From 1996-2000, she was affiliated with the Organ Research Center in Göteborg, Sweden, resulting in several published articles and "The Organ in Recorded Sound," the first-ever conference devoted to sound recordings of the organ. Her research has resulted in two anthologies of late-medieval and Renaissance organ music, published in 2000 and 2004.
Dr. Marshall is attracted to the organ's vast possibilities of timbre and musical texture; her work reflects enthusiasm for creativity and historical awareness. She has performed throughout Europe, including concerts in London's Royal Festival Hall and Westminster Cathedral; King's College, Cambridge; Chartres Cathedral; Roskilde Cathedral (Denmark); St. Laurenskerk, Alkmaar (Netherlands); as well as the famous Hildebrandt instrument in Naumburg, Germany, that Bach examined in 1746. She enjoys tailoring programs to different instruments, as is evident from her recordings of Italian and Spanish music on historical organs. Her playing is informed by research into obscure repertoire and performance practice, although she does not limit herself to early music. She gave performances of organ works by Ligeti in the presence of the composer, and she has been an advocate for music by Margaret Sandresky and Ofer Ben-Amots. Her recording of Chen Yi's organ concerto with the Singapore Symphony was released in 2003 on the BIS label.
Scott Dettra, organ
Scott Dettra is Organist of Washington National Cathedral, where he is the principal organist and assists Music Director Michael McCarthy with the direction of the Cathedral choirs. In addition to his work at the Cathedral, Mr. Dettra is also Keyboard Artist for both the Washington Bach Consort and the Cathedral Choral Society. He has previously held positions at St. Paul's Parish, K Street in Washington; St. Mark's Church, Philadelphia; and Trinity Church, Princeton. Additionally, he was principal accompanist of the American Boychoir for many years.
A prize-winning organist, he has performed at national conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Association of Anglican Musicians, and has appeared at many notable venues throughout the world. In his work with the Cathedral Choral Society, Mr. Dettra has prepared the ensemble for performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, and the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Mr. Dettra has appeared at the Lincoln Center Festival as organist for the North-American premiere of John Tavener's seven-hour work The Veil of the Temple. In addition to many recording credits, his performances have been broadcast numerous times on the BBC, NPR, and PRI. His latest recording, made on the organ of Washington National Cathedral, will be released on the Gothic label in early 2010.
Mr. Dettra holds two degrees from Westminster Choir College and has also studied jazz piano at Manhattan School of Music. His principal organ teachers have been Joan Lippincott, Dennis Keene, and his father, Lee Dettra.
The Phoenix Chorale
The Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale, in residence at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Phoenix, is regarded as one of the finest professional choral ensembles in America. The 27-voice chorus is equally dedicated to the creation and performance of new music, which it intermingles with more traditional concert literature.
Audiences around the world have been treated to the sounds of the Chorale through live performances across the United States and in Canada, and in live broadcasts and recordings on radio stations across the globe.
In March 2009, the Phoenix Chorale made their New York debut with their sister organization, the Kansas City Chorale, at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The New York Times referred to the Chorales’ “…refined sound and elegant phrasing…” with “vivid intensity…” and the performance had a “…buoyant pulse and energetic finesse.”
In 2004, the Phoenix Chorale became the first North American choir to release an album on Chandos Records, one of the largest independent classical record labels in the world. Since then, four more recordings have been made on the Chandos label, including a three disc series of joint-recordings with the Kansas City Chorale and their newest album, a solo disc titled Spotless Rose. Three of the albums have received a total of eight Grammy Award nominations and two Grammy Award wins including “Best Small Ensemble Performance” and “Best Engineered Album, Classical.”
Originally called the Bach & Madrigal Society of Phoenix, the Phoenix Chorale was founded in 1958 as a small study group in the living room of Drs. Hal & Timona Pittman. At that time, the group focused on the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Most recently, the Phoenix Chorale was known as the Phoenix Bach Choir, a name the group performed under for nearly twenty years.
In its fifty-year history, the Phoenix Chorale’s conductors have included Millicent Wesley, Wallace Hornibrook, Dan Durand, Vance George, Anders Ohrwall, Jon Washburn, and Charles Bruffy.